


Like Old Friends

by Instigator



Series: Family Dynamics [4]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Angst, Body Dysmorphia, M/M, Masturbation, Post-Serum Steve Rogers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-11
Updated: 2013-03-11
Packaged: 2017-12-05 00:25:09
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,926
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/716760
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Instigator/pseuds/Instigator
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It’s been less than 24 hours after Steve got what amounted to a whole new body, and he can’t quite wrap his head around the changes. This new body is familiar, but he doesn’t recognize it as his. So, what should he do with unrestricted access to a body that looks like one he’s wanted to touch for over a decade?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Like Old Friends

**Author's Note:**

> Much thanks to my lovely betas printed_soot and gerbilfluff.

Steve shut the door to the small, unexceptional hotel room the Strategic Scientific Reserve was putting him up in for the night. In the morning, they’d be figuring out what to do with him. For now, Steve was given the night to try to process the bizarre events of the day. Maybe make a start on getting used to the changes from Dr. Erskin’s formula.

He sat on the bed, trying not to think about Dr. Erskin, whose death he’d failed to prevent despite the gift the doctor had given him.  The folks at the SSR seemed to think that without Dr. Erskin Steve would be the only one of his kind, not the first of a new breed of super soldiers, but an isolated incident. He hung his head, trying to relax the muscles in his neck, and caught sight of a pair of large, strong hands. _His_ hands, at least in theory. He turned them over, vaguely surprised that these foreign hands did what he told them to. They didn’t look like his hands. Didn’t even feel like them. He turned the right one to grasp the left. Neither the strength of the right hand nor the bulk of the left felt familiar.

Well, maybe a little familiar. But not his hands. If he was honest, it felt more like Bucky holding onto his hand than anything else. This whole body seemed a lot more like Bucky’s than Steve’s.  Big and strong and tall. It was the kind of body he’d always wanted, but even after agreeing to the serum, he’d never expected anything like this.

Now it felt like he was walking around in someone else’s body, and he wasn’t even sure _whose_. Realistically, it probably belonged to the army more than anyone in particular. But that was just part of being a soldier, wasn’t it? Pledging your body to a cause. Still, up ‘till today he’d always felt like his body was his, no matter how he’d pledged to use it. No matter how it disobeyed him.

There was a dingy mirror over the dresser in the hotel room. Not a real big one, maybe two feet long. Maybe he could get a better look at this new body. Try to get used to the idea that it was his. Stop feeling like a thief who’d run off with army property.

He pulled off his shirt, hesitated, and got up and locked the door. Before he could think about it any more, he made up his mind to go all in and stripped off the rest of what he had on. Once all his clothes were sitting neatly at the end of the bed, he paused, taking a slow, deep breath. Even that felt wrong- no rattle in his chest, no tired protest from his body that the air he was getting wasn’t enough.

Steve crossed the small room to the dresser and the mirror. He kept his eyes on the bed, not quite willing to look at the body walking across the floor just yet. He stopped in front of the dresser, and pressed the big hands to its top.

It was just a mirror. Nothing to get edgy about. He turned to look.

He flinched slightly at the stranger reflected in the mirror in front of him. He’d caught a couple glances in surfaces throughout the day, but with everything going on, he’d had more important things to focus on than his vanity or nerves. He wondered if the guys he’d seen come back with bad burns and disfigurations felt this way. But that wasn’t fair. They’d been through something awful, something painful. Well, ok, the procedure had been painful, but it’d been over fast enough and Steve wasn’t disfigured. He wasn’t hurt.

He just wasn’t recognizable, either. Not as the same guy whose tie he’d tied this morning.

The man Steve was looking at had broad square shoulders, a wide strong neck, that chest…

Steve shook his head, looking away. He tried looking down instead which turned out to be a mistake. The body he saw beneath him was even less familiar. For one thing, the floor was much too far away. He glanced away, but something about what he’d just seen tempted him to risk another look.

He took a few paces back, not sure if his pulse was speeding up due to nerves or… something else. He craned his head, trying to get a look at the rest of the body in the mirror.

The rest matched what he’d seen in the mirror, tall and broad everywhere you’d want a man to be, chiseled muscles all the way down, narrow hips and…Steve looked away, years of careful self-conditioning telling him not to look any lower. It was rude to stare and if you got caught staring at some things it could make big trouble for you. It took half a second for him to remember what he was doing and feel embarrassed for being afraid to get caught looking in a mirror. He’d been embarrassed looking in a mirror loads of times, but never because he was afraid to get caught. By himself, no less.

He made himself look back, just to make a point. And yeah, there was that well muscled man was again, some kind of nude Adonis, or something, standing awkwardly in a dingy motel room.  The man was looking back at Steve in the mirror, unconcerned about his wandering eye. Steve normally didn’t like being looked at, and he normally didn’t like mirrors, but watching that guy gave him no sensation of being watched.

He kept his eyes on the mirror, trying to take in the idea that it was a mirror he was looking at. He brought one hand up to the other arm. It was reassuring and almost surprising that the arm and hand obeyed him, just as if they belonged to him. The hand obeyed, but the feeling of that hand on Steve’s arm didn’t feel like Steve’s hand. And the curving muscle under Steve’s hand sure didn’t feel like Steve’s arm. It was smooth and hard and warm. His fingers moved a little, testing the flesh under them, enjoying how little it yielded under his grasp.

He moved the hand off his arm, rubbing absently at the flat plain of a chest. The skin where his hand traced seemed to be describing the touch of some other man’s hand- certainly Steve didn’t recognize the large hand and strong fingers as his own. And the chest his hand was describing wasn’t anything like the nearly concave, bony little territory Steve recognized as his torso. It was if he was touching and being touched by someone else. Someone tall with large strong hands and…

His eyes widened. Oh, no no. That was too weird. This was _his own_ body. Nothing to get excited about. Definitely nothing to go getting turned on by. He tried again to remind himself that this was _him_. There wasn’t anybody else here and this was _his_ body, just changed. Not new. But his mind, or maybe something lower, had a whole other set of references to go with touching and being touched by someone with big hands and curving muscles.

A decade of fantasizing about Bucky made it hard to associate this kind of touching with anything else. His mind rebelled at the idea of his own hands feeling like this, but the imagined sensations of Bucky’s hands on him were well-worn and familiar.

He choked on a small noise in the back of his throat. There wasn’t any denying it at this point, his body was definitely responding. To the fantasy, contact, or the image of the naked and now partially erect man in the mirror, Steve wasn’t sure.

This felt so _obscene._ He shouldn’t be thinking about Bucky, and he couldn’t shake the feeling that he shouldn’t be touching or looking at the man in the mirror this way.

But he sure wanted to.

He moved to drop his hand back down to his side and stop petting at that chest. The hand brushed past solid and well-defined abs, and paused in the middle of the drop.

Steve knew better than to touch another guy. That was a good way to get ruined, fast. He knew what Bucky’s arms and hands felt like, because those were safe. His memory was full of those small, safe points of contact- Bucky’s arm flung casually across Steve’s shoulders, or Bucky’s hand rubbing Steve’s back at Steve struggled to get some air in his lungs. But he’d never touched another guy’s stomach before. His fingers splayed out, pressing against the firmness just above his navel. And again, Steve got the sensation of an almost familiar hand touching him. It was disorienting, and didn’t seem to be doing anything good for his goal of not having a hard-on right now.

But he didn’t drop the hand, he let it linger, letting the fingers explore just a little. He closed his eyes. If anything, that just made things worse. Gave him even more of an impression that the person doing the touching couldn’t be him, and that it was someone else’s muscles under his hand. A familiar face, and familiar set of hands, so often imagined, immediately sprang to mind.

Steve usually tried not to jerk off thinking about Bucky. He’d developed a lot of self-discipline over the years, _not_ thinking about Bucky that way. Bucky liked girls the way other guys liked breathing. But Steve was just a man, after all, and every guy has his private little fantasies, right? So sure, now and then, he’d indulged a little. In private. Sometimes he even thought it helped him let off a little steam, so he didn’t say or do something he shouldn’t. So he wouldn’t get caught looking for too long.

This though, what was happening now, this was a whole other level of sensation. Far, far closer than Steve ever thought he’d get to touching the man he knew damn well he was in love with. But Bucky wasn’t _here._ Just thinking about that made Steve simultaneously more guilty for thinking about Bucky in a way his friend would be sure to be disgusted by, and excited at the freedom that represented.

The prospect of having a body like this to touch however he wanted was making him dizzy. And hard. It was like pornography- something to look at alone and in private to get off on. Except this was _touch,_ not just sight. It was like having the whole playground to himself. And there wasn’t anyone here to be put off by it. Nobody to be offended or disgusted or repulsed by the things Steve wanted. He could touch all he wanted. Maybe he’d be angry at himself later, but just now the temptation was just too strong.

He let his hand drop the last few inches with just the slightest hesitation, and grabbed the hard shaft with one firm hand. The dick in his hand was thick and heavy and long and just what Steve had imagined Bucky’s would be like, and the sweating, firm hand he felt wrapping around his dick couldn’t possibly have been Steve’s bony hand. His eyes slid shut and he ran just his thumb experimentally up the underside. He shuddered. His knees went a little weak and he reached to the dresser to steady himself.

He decided to get himself to the bed before he smashed something accidentally. He crossed a few hurried paces back to the hotel bed; banging his leg into the side of it as he miscalculated how many steps he needed to make it there.

He settled down on the bed, shutting his eyes again and leaning back. He only hesitated a moment before settling his hand around that cock. How many times had he imagined him and Bucky with their hands wrapped around each other, leaning into Bucky’s solid frame. This was so close, so much closer than Steve had ever gotten…would ever get, to that experience.

He started with a few long, slow strokes, squeezing gently with just his thumb and pointer finger. Again, the messages he was getting back from his body was that a hand, a very Bucky-like hand, was stroking him. And, that he had some other man’s hot, stiff length in his own hand.

He pushed his head back against the pillows, gasping just a little, reveling in the feeling of being able to touch something he never thought he’d be able to. This was forbidden fruit here, and nobody had to know about it but Steve himself. He wouldn’t have to drive anybody else away with his warped needs.

He changed the angle of his hand, wanting more contact. More of that hand. Bucky’s hand. Wanting to grip more of his dick in his grasp. He angled his hand downward, one finger extended He thought of all the guys in sleeveless shirts at the base, gleaming with the sweat of exertion. Of all the not-looking he'd had to do at their arms. He thought of hot summers; Bucky sweating and down to his skivvies in the apartment they used to share. Now he _could_ look. He opened his eyes and looked down at the body spread out below. Taut muscles and hard dick and a faint sheen of sweat and better than he’d even envisioned. He closed his eyes again, biting his lip and holding on to that image. He felt his hips buck up into his grip of their own accord.

Somehow, that was the breaking point. In this equation of foreign muscles and large hands and movement he didn’t entirely control, he didn’t know where _he_ was anymore. Suddenly, Steve didn’t seem to occupy or own any of the body parts at play here. He was jarred out of his pleasurable haze by the disjointedness of it, by a feeling of being _displaced._

He let go of the pulsing cock he’d been playing with, reaching both hands up in the air, away from the unfamiliar form he’d been groping. Whoever he was.  He shut his eyes again, trying to control his breathing. Uncomfortably, the unfamiliar body didn’t seem even a little put out by his near-panic, and stayed just as hard and craving for attention from the equally unfamiliar hands.

He’d asked for this. He’d worked for it. This was a perfect outcome to Dr. Erskin’s experiment. But he felt a flash of panic, wanting his body back. Wanting a body he knew belonged to him; to ground him, keep him in this world.

Steve flexed his hands and opened his eyes, blinking at the ceiling and trying to clear his head. He saw the large hands- _his_ large hands, opening and closing, reaching towards the ceiling. He watched them, focusing on the connection between his intent and their motion. His hands. Not Bucky’s, not the Army’s, and not the Strategic Scientific Reserve’s. _His_ hands.

He wanted to know where he was. Wanted a body of his own. And this was the only one available. Suddenly, recognizing and accepting this body as his was a much higher priority. He didn’t want to feel like a body thief, or like he was touching some man who wasn’t really here and didn’t have a say. Didn’t want to panic over a little over-excited hip twitch.

He looked down at the body- his body. But no, he couldn’t buy that. That wasn’t him. Couldn’t be him. That was some other man’s body in an unfamiliar bed, and Steve didn’t know where he himself was. He shook his head, closing his eyes and covering his face with unfamiliar, too-familiar hands. 

He got up off the bed, crossing the room again to the dresser and putting one hand on it to steady himself. He opened his eyes, looking his reflection full in the face. He swallowed hard. He hadn’t looked at his face before. Been too distracted by the body. But his face was different too, a strong jaw and chin and his cheekbones didn’t jut out at unattractive angles like before. Was anything on him still the same?

He caught his eyes in the mirror. Yes. Those he could recognize. Those were his eyes. Clear, and less tired looking than normal, and with pupils open as wide as they could go, but his eyes. And his eyebrows, yeah, those were the same. Hair- yeah, his hair was just about the same as it had been that morning. Nose, mouth. Yes. This was his face. Altered, but recognizable. Steve knew that man.

He was still sweating, breathing hard, his cock still ramrod straight and aching for release. He didn’t want to look down. It was like he was standing on a tall building, right at the end of the roof, and if he looked down he might get dizzy and trip over the edge.

But he didn’t really want to stay like this, either. This body had _stamina_ and he didn’t want to consider how long it would take this hard-on to die down on it’s own if his previous panic hadn’t done the trick. He focused on the face in the mirror, and grabbed his dick firmly, focusing on what he was doing. On this being his hand and his dick and his body. He was jerking off. God knows he’d done it often enough, he should recognize the action.  He held his own reflected gaze, panting a little and trying not to lean too hard on the dresser or grip it too hard. He focused his attention inward on the perfect synchronization of what his hand was doing and what he was feeling.

He pulled harshly, too overwhelmed to bother with what felt best and no longer wanting to savor the disconnect that had seemed appealing before he’d tried it. Bucky wasn’t here, and he wanted to know beyond a shadow of a doubt that he still had a body in all of this. That it wasn’t all other people’s. His eyes slid shut as the heat built inside him, and the duality threatened to come back and disorient him again. Halfway to coming wasn’t the best frame of mind for staying clear headed, but he was already here, and after the madness of today he needed a release.

He focused harder. The hand was doing what his dick was feeling. And he could feel it. It was his body. A thought occurred to him and he moved his hand from the dresser to his inner thigh, turning to lean his back against the dresser.

There should be a mole there, a small, flattish one, but one he could feel with his fingers without having to look down. He ran a finger over the space he knew it should be. The proportions of his thigh had shifted enough that he didn’t find it at first. He felt a stab of loss and disorientation again, of having been displaced from himself, but before it could build he found the small raised mark on his strangely tight skin. The mole, the little inconsequential thing, was still there. Steve was still there.

The reassurance was strong enough to make him feel safe slowing down some. He let his motions become a little less frantic. _His_ motions. He checked again, and the synchronization of intent, movement and sensation was still there. Still telling him, despite the outlandishness of the proportions and the effortless strength of the hands, that he was still himself. His fingers stroked over the mole again, a reassurance.

He changed the motion, this time gripping the edge of his foreskin between his pointer and middle finger, and tugging back and forth, stroking lightly with his thumb on the other side. And yeah, yeah that felt the same. The things he liked before, he still liked. He ran through a few other well practiced motions, gripping, pulling, reveling in the familiarity of his responses. That familiarity was as much a thrill now as the fake duality was minutes ago.

A few minutes in and he was back to sweating hard, getting close to the end. He decided he needed to quit hiding. He tried to lock his mind around the idea that this was his body, and pried his eyes open, looking down. His motions faltered as he took in the sight, but he steadied himself, returning to his stroking. He couldn’t think of any other act that he held as private as this. The fact that he was masturbating this body proved it was him. Nobody else had ever, probably would ever, touch him like this. This was private and solitary and belonged to nobody else but him.

It seemed to be working. He looked down at the flat, muscled stomach, the chest, the thighs under him, and they seemed a little less attractive, a little less forbidden, a little less foreign. The motions of the hand, of his hand, and the pulsing sensations in his dick matched up. He was moving the hand and he was feeling the result.

He sped up his strokes without letting his eyes close. Repeating a mantra in his mind that this was okay, that this was him and he was still there.

He bit his lip again, another point of familiarity in a life that had always required silence from him during private moments like this. It was taking longer than it used to, and was starting to drive Steve a little crazy. He grabbed a little liquid off the head for lubrication and switched his hand motions again. He let go of the mole to grip the base of his dick in one hand, using the other to stroke upwards over the head, squeezing. The pressure started building much more rapidly and Steve started panting silently. This heat, this tension… these things must be universal.

He shuddered and closed his throat around the noise that tried to escape, another familiar set of sensations. He wasn’t out of his body. He was in it. Overwhelmed by it. He cupped his fist over the head as he came, shutting his eyes tight as the heat swept through him, temporarily blanking out everything else.

He took a shaky breath as the tremors faded and the world came back into focus. He pulled his bowed head up and dropped his hands. The masturbation had done its work and Steve was finally exhausted, all the adrenaline from the day drained out of his system. Now he felt a drowsy, halfhearted acceptance and a strong pull from the bed a few paces away.

He pushed off the dresser and just about fell into the bed. He wiped his sticky hands on a far corner of the sheet, feeling a twinge of guilt at leaving a mess for the hotel staff to deal with, and hoping they wouldn’t pay attention enough to notice. He was still sweating and hot all over, but he grabbed the sheets and wrapped them tight around him, hiding the disorienting sight of the body he was piloting. He curled on his side, avoiding noticing how much of the bed he took up now, and closed his eyes. Right now, this body was his. He didn’t need anything more throwing him off today.

Sleep, at least, should be pretty much the same. He buried his face in the pillow, tried to slow down his still too-fast pulse, and waited for it to come for him.


End file.
